


I Can't Leave Her

by lastroseofrwby



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Holding Hands, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Volume 8 (RWBY), jaune also has a one second appearance, v8 speculation, weiss and yang make small appearances they're not huge parts of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastroseofrwby/pseuds/lastroseofrwby
Summary: “Penny, you can’t.”“I have to, Ruby. I’m the only one who can.”Atlas is falling, and Penny's the only one who can keep it in the sky.
Relationships: Penny Polendina & Ruby Rose, Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	I Can't Leave Her

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to get this out before v8 because canon's definitely gonna cut it in half, but this is close enough. so - nuts and dolts hugs. i like them a lot they're very cute. hence this. have fun!!

Her arms ached. Her joints screamed. Penny could feel her internal fans activating to combat the systems overheating and overloading as she attempted to siphon even more strength from her already empty reserves. She could feel the rockets in her boots stutter as they began to lose power. 

Penny wasn’t in ideal condition.

Desperately, she tapped into the Maiden powers to boost herself up further. The mass above her barely moved. But it hadn’t fallen yet. That was what mattered.

She resisted the temptation to look below her, knowing that it would weaken her focus on her task. Vaguely, she was aware that the others would be evacuating the citizens from the crater, but it was difficult to think.

The weight of the sky was on her shoulders, and Penny was doing all she could to keep it afloat.

* * *

Ruby stumbled to a stop, releasing the young girl onto the ground as gently and quickly as possible. Distantly, she could feel herself gesturing to Maria and Pietro, hearing herself tell the girl that she was safe now.

_As if anyone could really be safe now._

Her hands were shaking. She felt like she was floating in and out of her body - distinctly aware of each twitch of her fingers, every jolt up her spine, but her movements were dulled. Her thoughts felt muffled, as if her brain was stuffed with cotton. There was a buzzing in her ears that refused to go away. Pain pulsed in the back of her skull, simultaneously too fast for her to process and too slow for her to ignore.

_“Penny, you can’t.”_

Ruby turned back to the crater and felt her feet lift off the ground. She knew - she _knew_ \- that she was running low on Aura, that soon she would collapse, her strength fizzling out into the freezing air of Solitas. But she couldn’t just stop. There were people who needed help. She was a Huntress - it was her duty to save everyone.

_“I have to, Ruby. I’m the only one who can.”_

Or die trying.

She reached the crater again and hit the ground running. Through one ear she heard the distinct hum of Weiss’s summons. Through the other, Blake was gently coaxing two toddlers out of their hiding place by a dumpster. Ruby whipped her head around, desperately trying to find anyone who needed help.

_“Please be careful.”_

If anyone was left behind-

_Screams. The city overrun by Grimm. A Nevermore inches away from her friends._

_Not again please not again_

A man was lying on the ground in an alley nearby, holding his leg. Ruby bolted over to him. His face was pale; sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold. His lips moved, but she could hardly understand what he was saying. Ruby felt her right hand twitch and grabbed it with her left to stop the tremors. Her expression must have conveyed her confusion - the man pausing for a second before repeating his words. She managed to process _back, daughter, safe_ \- and Ruby realized that this was the father of the girl she’d just dropped off. They had the same eyes. 

“I - Sir, can I take you to safety? It’s probably going to hurt, but I know someone who can help your leg. Your daughter’s waiting with him.” She tried to keep her voice steady. She couldn’t alarm the man further; if he knew just how scared she was it would only make things worse.

The man winced, starting to shake his head.

Ruby could feel her breath starting to speed up. Her voice dropped to a pleading whisper. “ _Please_ , I can’t just leave you here.” She reached her right hand out to him, praying that he’d take it. “I promise, I’ll make it as fast as possible - you’ll see your daughter again.”

The moments waiting for his response ticked by agonizingly slowly - each beat of her heart taking her closer and closer to her boiling point.

He nodded.

She exhaled, giving the man a count of three to prepare himself. Fatigue weighed down all of her motions and even without checking her Scroll, Ruby knew that her Aura had to be in the red. But she had to keep going. At the final number she closed her eyes, turning into a whirlwind once again, relying more on instinct and feeling than rational thought to reach her destination.

She felt her stomach lurch.

A wave of exhaustion crashed over her.

Ruby dropped down into the snow, feeling a jackhammer pounding away at her head. There was a ringing in her ears. Her shoulder burned where she had crashed. Everything was blurry. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but it was as if time had slowed down. She choked on the air. Her head felt like it had been submerged in water. The tundra was vast and open but Ruby felt _trapped isolated scared confused_ ; she tried to just _breathe_ but it wasn’t enough - every intake of the freezing atmosphere only served to bite at her lungs. She balled her hands into fists.

She still had to move.

There was a blob near her: the man she’d been trying to save. She roughly pushed herself up to her hands and knees, her lungs burning, but as she tried to crawl over to him, a hand placed itself on her shoulder, grounding her. She felt a rush of oxygen in her lungs and the wall in her throat began to clear.

“Ruby, it’s okay. I’ve got it.”

A blob with yellow hair rushed over to the man and immediately a white glow surrounded them. 

Jaune. Thank the gods for Jaune.

Her gaze flickered upwards as her vision started to focus, landing on the small figure in the sky who was keeping them all alive.

Penny was still up there.

Ruby had to be faster. 

She had to get it right this time. Even if she couldn’t use her semblance anymore, she still had legs. She could still help. 

She grit her teeth and hauled herself up. Her shoulder was agony. The world swam before her eyes. _Come on._ She scrunched her eyes shut and held her head in her hands. Images swirled in the mess of her mind of _the top of Beacon tower growing closer and closer, of a lonely sword stabbing into a piece of torn cloth, of a condescending smirk and “Oh, polarity versus metal? Yeesh, that could be bad.”_ She tried to just imagine a blank space, an emptiness, an absence of the usual chaos - even nothing was better than re-living - but the darkness she saw behind her eyelids just turned into the darkness of those eyes, dilating and stopping and staring forever _right at her._

Her eyes flew open, gasping. Bursts of light punched through from behind the silver. Her hands curled into her hair and she gripped - hard - as she shook her head, almost as if she could coax the memories out of her brain and into the air. 

_The cold feeling of a sword that_ wasn’t hers.

_Shut up._

_She was tainting it._

_Shut up._

_Twisting it into the side of that monster-_

“Ruby!” Someone grabbed her by the shoulders. In a panic, Ruby stumbled back, smacking their hands away.

“Ruby, it’s me!” They stopped her hand. “It’s me.”

She looked up and found lilac eyes. Ruby could feel herself shaking. Her right fist tapped against her leg incessantly. She breathed in, “I need to go. I-” She tried to pull her hand away. “Yang, let go of me.”

“Ruby, stop.”

She pulled harder, “Yang, _let go of me_.” _Scattered body parts._ The rate of her breaths increased. _A broken dream - “I want to stay at Beacon” - she wouldn’t get to-_

Yang’s grip on her held firm. “Stop and take a second. Your aura’s down. You can’t.” Her sister’s eyes bore into her own, lilac to silver. Despite the determination burning in the purple she looked tired, the bags and creases under her eyes indicating how long she’d been awake and fighting - how long they’d all been fighting. Yang’s concern cut into her like a knife. 

The beat in her chest stuttered. “I-” Ruby choked. 

_Running in slow motion. Helpless. Useless. An ache in her stomach and dread up to her ears._

_The sounds of metal hitting the ground._

Frantically, she shook her head, her gaze flicking everywhere but her sister’s face. She couldn’t stand it. “I can’t.” It was like she was drowning. “It’s - it’s happening again and I can’t stop it. Yang, I can’t stop it, she’s still there and I can’t _leave people there_ , I can’t-”

Her vision went dark as Yang pulled her close.

Ruby tried to still her hands by her sides but it was as though there was an earthquake in her veins. “I - I’m sorry. This is all my fault,” She whimpered into Yang’s shoulder. “If I didn’t-”

_Dead eyes._

_A void in her life._

_She was too slow._

There was a hand holding her head and a kiss on her forehead. It felt nostalgic - as if they were kids again and Yang had just helped her cut her hair for the first time. Or when she had tried baking cookies for Yang’s birthday but accidentally spilled the chocolate chips everywhere; Yang had laughed boisterously before helping her clean up. They’d baked them together that day. It was as if she was back to the time when they were happy. 

But they couldn’t be that now - not when all of humanity was counting on them. They were teenagers and all of humanity was counting on them.

It wasn’t fair. Nobody deserved this - her _friends_ didn’t deserve this.

Her breath rattled in a hollow chest. She was tired.

Sometimes Ruby wished she could just cry. She was the reason that Yang, her friends, _everyone_ , was in this fucking mess. Except she couldn’t. She couldn’t cry, she had to keep it together - she had to _keep moving forward_ because people were counting on her so she had to _go_.

“Ruby? Ruby, listen to me.” A hand on her face. “Look at me.” Ruby backed away and opened her eyes, staring at the snow beneath her feet. Her nails were digging into her palms. “It’s going to be okay. Weiss just came back - she did a sweep with her Lancer and it looks like we got everyone out.”

Ruby’s eyes shot up. In her peripheral vision she could see a small blue figure near Pietro and Maria’s station. 

“Everyone’s out?”

Her sister nodded, relieved. “Everyone’s out.” 

Ruby stilled.

“I’ll be right back.”

Before her sister could react, Ruby took off towards the crater, her eyes laser-set on the city in the sky, on the girl holding it up. Her legs ached and pulled but Ruby ignored it. She could hear Yang calling for her to come back, to rest, to figure out a plan but Ruby didn’t have the time - _Penny didn’t have the time_. She swept her exhaustion aside and thought about Penny - how with every breath, every heartbeat, Penny was closer and closer to falling.

Her feet lifted off the snow and the world turned red.

* * *

Penny awoke on the ground.

What was she doing here?

She sat up, her visuals zeroing in on the excessive debris lying not too far away from her. Could that have been the crater? But - that’s right. Her job had been to support Atlas in the air as her friends evacuated the residents.

Had they been successful?

_Penny huffed and struggled to push upwards. She could hear the rock scratching against the metal of her hands. Her gloves had been torn away long ago. She shut her eyes and tried to block out the wave roaring in her ears._

_She couldn’t help but feel tempted to give up. It hurt, so badly - and it didn’t seem as though she was making any progress. But she couldn’t give up; Ruby was counting on her._

_Ruby had hugged her. She’d told her to “Go,” and to be careful._

_The thought of Ruby sparked a new wave of determination. Ruby wouldn’t give up. She would keep going and do her best to save everyone._

_Penny was the Protector of Mantle._

_And Ruby was counting on her._

_Penny’s eyes flew open, green flames erupting across her face. The freezing winds swirled around her, hammering at the landmass and taking some of the torment off her shoulders._

_She exhaled just in time for a red storm to collide._

Red?

Penny narrowed her eyes and zoomed in on a figure in the distance.

There was a bundle of red lying in the snow.

Immediately Penny raced towards the body - her boots weren’t functioning properly - and loaded up the Aura monitor on her display. The majority of her friends had theirs in varying states ranging from red to an uneasy yellow. Penny herself was dangerously low. She crouched down slowly as she arrived at the body, feeling the twinges and creaks in her joints; she assumed that they were likely damaged from the crash.

_Ruby?_

Penny reached out tentatively, uncovering the mess of red cloth by the figure’s head. Her hair was untidy - more than her usual style - and her eyes were shut. She was breathing, but each inhale and exhale was shallow, scarily so. Quietly, Penny called out her friend’s name, hoping that she would wake up, that she would grin and her eyes would shine with the light that was always resting behind the silver - even when she wasn’t turning Grimm to stone. Her hopes were left unfulfilled.

Penny wasn’t sure what to do. There was an uncomfortable straining feeling in her core, vastly unlike the usual warmth that she felt around the other girl. Was Ruby okay? Was she - no. No, she couldn’t be. Penny refused to believe that.

“Ruby?” Penny tried again, touching her shoulder and giving it a gentle shake. She didn’t respond. Penny’s fingers curled in nervously and she brought her hands close to her heart. 

Penny’s voice grew more desperate. “Ruby, _please_ , are you there?” 

Nothing. 

The Aura monitor on the side of her display flashed - a precautionary measure set by her father so that she wouldn’t have too many programs running at once. Just in case, Penny scanned through the list. Then she stopped, her core growing cold.

Ruby’s Aura meter was empty. She was at zero.

There was something overwhelming in her sensors and Penny didn’t enjoy the feeling at all. Had Ruby-

She had been trying to save her.

There was a burning behind her eyes and Penny didn’t know what to do. Tension was building behind them and she _knew_ that it would come to nothing. No matter the range of emotions she felt, Penny knew that she would never be able to shed a tear for the occasion. Any feeling that could manifest itself would just stay there, boiling inside her. She could never disclose it to her father, but she hated it.

She closed her eyes tight and reached for Ruby’s hand, lying limply by her side. She laced their fingers together, as Ruby usually did when she was lending comfort. Ruby’s fingers were cold. Penny dipped her head and attempted to replicate what Ruby would do - gently rubbing her thumb up and down the back of the other girl’s hand - and tried to just transmit some warmth back to her.

“Ruby?” She murmured. “I’m not sure if you can hear me. But if you do, _please_ , wake up.”

Penny knew that contacting her father or Weiss or any of her other friends would be the proper course of action, but turning away from Ruby, even for a second, felt wrong.

The snow was falling around them, miniscule flakes of ice drifting through the air and dusting their hands, hair, clothes, and cheeks. She gently squeezed Ruby’s hand, and waited. 

A groan and a soft voice cut through and melted the silence, “Penny?” 

Penny opened her eyes slowly - unsure of whether she could hope to believe what she was hearing - and raised her head to see Ruby propped up on one elbow and staring back at her, silver eyes shining with relief. 

“Ruby,” Penny felt her face soften and spread into a wide smile. The feeling in her chest unknotted and it was as though she could burst or fly fueled by happiness alone, even if her boots were malfunctioning.

Suddenly she felt herself get knocked back and she was on the ground again, Ruby’s arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders. “You’re okay,” the other girl murmured into Penny’s shoulder, her head resting snugly in the crook of her neck. Her voice glowed with a quiet excitement and wonder, “You’re okay. Thank goodness.”

Penny felt a strange fluttering sensation in her abdomen and her sensors grew warm at the contact - but this was the usual protocol when she was around Ruby, so nothing of concern. She rested her hands on Ruby’s back, embracing her in return. “Yes,” Penny replied. “I have you to thank for that.”

Ruby froze momentarily, then squeezed harder. Neither girl seemed willing to let go. Penny wasn’t sure how long they lay there, basking in the elation of just being alive. 

Ruby muttered quietly, “I was really worried.” She burrowed further into Penny’s arms, prompting a soft giggle. Ruby was cute.

“I was quite concerned for you as well,” Penny admitted. Her fingers curled in on Ruby’s shoulders, remembering the discomfort and fear that she’d felt upon seeing her body. “I was unsure about the possibility of you waking up.” Ruby stayed silent. “I’m very happy that you did. But I’d like to ask - in the future, please do not put yourself so much at risk.”

Ruby grunted before unlocking her arms from behind Penny’s neck and sitting back on her knees. Penny followed suit. Ruby shifted her gaze from the snow up to Penny’s eyes, her face growing steely. “I’d do it again.”

Penny’s eyebrows creased, “Ruby-”

“I’d do it again.” Ruby repeated, matching Penny’s unease with her determination. “I’m serious.” 

“But why?”

“What?”

“Why? I shouldn’t be worth the danger that you put yourself in.” Penny remembered the scratches and peels on her hands, revealing the truth of her humanity - or lack thereof. She clasped them together in her lap. Ruby’s eyes flickered down to Penny’s hands and raised an eyebrow. Her face softened. She reached out and placed her right hand over Penny’s, her thumb brushing over the back of Penny’s hand. Her fingers were warm.

“Penny, you’ll always be worth it.” Ruby’s eyes stayed locked on their hands. “You-” She bit her lip, cutting off her words. She shook her head, breathing in deeply, as if she was thinking through what she was to say. 

“When I was traveling with the others, I thought about you a lot,” She began hesitantly. Her left hand rested on her own lap, her pointer finger tapping away at her leg. “Everyday. And it hurt. A lot.” She furrowed her eyebrows. “But I never wanted to forget you.” Her grip tightened slightly. “So I told myself, everyday, that I’d remember you, and that I’d work harder and be better. If there was a chance that I’d ever see you again, I wanted to be someone that you’d be happy to see.” She lifted her head and met Penny’s eyes with her own. Penny’s breath felt stuck in her chest. She couldn’t be sure if it was an optical illusion or otherwise, but Ruby’s eyes seemed to glow.

“So when I got here, and I saw you, I was really - I was so happy, and so relieved that you were alive. But every single day since then I’ve been _terrified_ about - about what would happen if- ” Her voice broke. Ruby scrunched in her lips and tore her eyes away from Penny’s. She looked up at the sky, trying to blink away the tears even as they already began to stream down her cheeks. She took a breath, shaking. She faced Penny again, her gaze filled with something that Penny couldn’t identify, but it made her feel warm. She wanted to reach out and wipe Ruby’s tears away. She wanted her to smile and laugh and for everything to be okay, like before. Ruby’s voice came out hushed and desperate.

“I can’t lose you again.”

Penny sat, stunned. It was as if someone had pressed pause on her processor. She recalled Ruby’s gentleness with her after their reunion, the way that her fingers had curled in when her father mentioned her _“ripping to shreds”_ , her avoidance of the word ‘death’. Ruby roughly brushed at her face, looking away from her. Slowly, Penny lifted her arms and pressed Ruby close to her. She felt Ruby’s body go stiff, shocked.

Penny closed her eyes, feeling Ruby’s warmth spread to her core and throughout her body. “You didn’t lose me. You reached me just in time,” She hummed into Ruby’s shoulder, feeling the other girl’s breath catch. “Thank you.”

Ruby’s breathing turned from quiet to desperate and gradually, she melted into the embrace. She buried her face into Penny’s chest, wrapping her arms around her waist and in turn, Penny held her close. She heard Ruby’s breaths quicken, stutter, and deepen - it took Penny a moment to realize that that was the sound of Ruby crying. Her sobs filled the dead air with signs of life. Teardrops sank into her blouse but Penny couldn’t find it in herself to care. _Perhaps_ , she thought, _Ruby really needed this_. She raised a hand to Ruby’s head and held her there.

“I was so scared.” Ruby’s body shook along with her voice.

Penny held her tighter, ignoring the quickening pulsing feeling in her core. “Me too,” She whispered. She could ask her father about that later - for now she’d focus on Ruby.

After some time Ruby had calmed, her breathing back to a stable pace. The two of them remained in their embrace, content to just take each other in. Eventually Ruby lifted her head off of her chest and they faced one another.

“Thanks, Penny.” Ruby was smiling again. There were remnants of tears in her eyes, snowflakes in her messy hair, and scratches on her face and hands, but she was smiling. Penny didn’t think she’d ever seen something so beautiful before. Ruby’s eyes had this spark in them, a light that could shine brighter than anything else and they always made Penny’s processor run a touch too quickly.

She felt a delicate touch on her hands again. Penny glanced down to her lap to see Ruby reaching out.

“Is it okay if I…?” Ruby trailed off. Penny paused for a moment before nodding. She could trust Ruby. Hesitantly, she turned her hands over, revealing the scrapes she’d received from Atlas’s weight. The synthetic skin on her palms had been shredded away, leaving her metal plating vulnerable. The rock had gouged shallow gashes into the metal. Her pain receptors had stopped pulsing long ago, yet the damage remained. Penny averted her eyes, curling her fingers inward.

“Hey,” Ruby placed a hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with these. They’re kinda cool actually,” She placed her fingers atop Penny’s and gently unfurled them. Penny was struck with a sense of familiarity - _was this what her father meant by ‘nostalgia’?_ \- recalling when she had first disclosed the truth about herself to Ruby. The silver eyed girl had done something similar. 

_“You think that just because you’ve got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?”_

_“You’re not like those things we saw back there. You’ve got a heart, and a soul! I can feel it.”_

“They can be like, battle scars, or something.”

Penny blinked, jolting out of her memories. “Battle scars?” She tilted her head.

“Yeah!” Ruby grinned. “Like, if you get hurt or something and a scar gets left behind. You can tell fun stories about how you got them and brag about them for cool points.”

“Battle scars…” Penny pondered. “Such as Weiss’s scar on her face?”

“Exactly!” Ruby nodded, her face relaxed and joyous in a way that Penny hadn’t seen from her in some time - perhaps not since Beacon.

“I suppose,” Penny looked back down to her hands. The slashes went back and forth, forming an interesting zig-zag pattern. They even crossed over each other at certain points. “I suppose they could be… cool.” She felt the corners of her mouth spread into a smile as Ruby took her pointer finger and began to leisurely trace the grooves on her hand.

“This doesn’t hurt, does it?” Ruby asked, looking back up at her with concern. Penny shook her head, her gaze fixated on the silver-eyed girl. Seeing Ruby like this - carefree, soft, and bright … it was nice.

Her sensors and core felt warm and fluffy, although she knew that it was impossible for her circuitry to be soft. But if anyone were to defy the logic and laws of her programming, it would be Ruby. It was always Ruby - her first friend, and very possibly the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to her.

“Is that enjoyable?”

“Kinda,” Ruby giggled before stopping abruptly, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead. “Oh, shoot. Uh, I guess we’d better tell the others where we are.”

Suddenly Penny was struck with a reminder of their current predicament. They were in a war. Atlas had just fallen. Civilians likely required assistance, even if they had been properly evacuated. In the midst of finding Ruby and the events corresponding to that, she’d completely forgotten. 

“Oh! Right,” She watched as Ruby withdrew a hand to retrieve her Scroll from her pouch. Her left hand stayed resting with Penny’s. As if out of habit, their fingers laced themselves together. Penny glanced back at Ruby in surprise, her sensors heating up.

“Um, hi? It’s Ruby. I’m with Penny,” Ruby’s lips spread into a sheepish grin as she held the Scroll up to her ear. She winced and Penny could hear the muffled yelling from her Scroll. “Gah, Weiss, okay, I get it! Sorry.” She leaned away from the device and pressed the button for speaker mode.

Weiss’s voice burst from the Scroll. “Are you two okay?” She demanded, her distress evident. 

“Neither of us are physically incapacitated,” Penny affirmed, leaning forward to make herself heard. “We are alright.” She felt Ruby’s eyes on her and looked up to meet them. They shared a smile. 

They heard Weiss sigh in relief. “Good. _Please_ don’t disappear like that again. It’s really stressful. We’ve got a lock on your coordinates, just stay there - we’re on our way.”

“See you soon!” Ruby glanced back at their interlocked hands before removing hers to wave at her Scroll as she disconnected the call. She turned back to Penny, the fingers on her left hand fidgeting as she put it away. “So! I guess we just wait then.”

“Yes, I doubt that we should worry them further,” Penny nodded, folding her hands together. A small part of her missed the warmth of Ruby’s hands on hers.

Ruby flopped backwards down into the snow, stretching her arms. “Gods, I’m tired,” She laughed a little too lightly. This raised suspicion.

“Then why don’t you rest?” Penny asked, cocking her head. “I can watch for our friends if you’d like.”

“Really?” Ruby propped herself up on her elbows. “I don’t know if I should. We’re gonna need to kick back into full gear once they get us and I can’t be half-asleep for that.” Her eyebrows creased but it was clear from the lock in her jaw how much she wished that she could yield to slumber.

“Ruby,” Penny extended her arm, placing her right hand on Ruby’s. Ruby’s eyes shot up to meet hers, a pink color appearing on her cheeks. “It’s okay to rest sometimes.”

“I-” Ruby stammered. “I’m, uh, I guess it couldn’t hurt too much.” She rubbed the back of her head timidly. “I can’t exactly just sleep on the snow, though.”

“Oh, of course not!” Penny was horrified at the idea. “Sleeping in the snow is exceedingly dangerous, and can lead to debilitating conditions such as frostbite or hypothermia. I was suggesting that you rest in my lap.”

“Your what?” Ruby’s eyes went wide, the pink spreading across her face. Penny decided that she’d ask her about that later on.

“On my lap. Or my shoulder. Anyplace, to be quite frank.” Penny shrugged. “My inner heating systems keep my circuitry from freezing over, and they allow me to emit warmth like an ordinary person. It would be statistically safer for you to rest on me than in the snow.”

Ruby chuckled nervously, brushing her hair behind her right ear. “Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess. If you’re sure.” She inched over to Penny’s side. “Are you sure?”

Penny giggled, placing her hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “Yes, it’s okay.” Ruby bit her lip to hold back her smile, her eyes flitting from the hand on her shoulder to Penny’s face.

“Thanks,” Ruby said before laying down and closing her eyes. The weight of Ruby’s body on hers was comforting, in a sense - a reminder to Penny that she was here, that they were both still here. Ruby’s breathing evened out, the inhales and exhales deep and steady. Penny smiled, curling her right hand over Ruby’s own and looked up to face the horizon. Together, they waited.

**Author's Note:**

> if you got to the end i'm hoping you liked it? if you did i'm also on twitter @ lastroseofrwby i really like screaming about ruby and penny and nuts and dolts and honestly just rwby in general so yeah COME SCREAM WITH ME ABOUT V8 BECAUSE WOW THAT EPISODE


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